the 8th dashboard dash

It's hard to believe that I've already done seven of these things, but in case you haven't read one yet, I came up with the "dashboard dash" as a weekly exercise in "free-blogging" - I try to break away from the comfort zone of not having any print deadlines or indeed myself as an editor and I give myself 15 minutes to type as much as I can before hitting the publish button once my timer goes off.

In fact that very term "comfort zone" leads me nicely into what I want to talk about this week. I have always been a big fan of the show "The West Wing" and I have the entire box set and I watch it through and through whenever I get the chance. During my last run through the seven series, about halfway through, I got the idea to watch each episode with the subtitles feature enabled and it has helped me immensely to keep up with all the different references Aaron Sorkin and co managed to cram into every storyline.

One thing in particular interested me. Rob Lowe's character, Sam Seaborn, was apparently a lawyer for a high profile New York firm before he was co-opted into the Bartlet for America campaign. During one episode they do a flashback to the very moment when Josh Lyman interrupts one of Sam's meetings with a client to convince him to ditch the job and go join him and the others.

In the story, Sam's firm were helping a freight company buy some boats, and it turns out they were getting a very good deal on the boats, mostly because they didn't pass all the required safety standards. What Sam and his colleagues had to do, was come up with a legal framework whereby no matter what happened to the ships, even though they were known to be potentially dangerous, the company in question would not be liable.

And so I learned a phrase a few weeks ago that has haunted me ever since, and which has led me to believe that perhaps I have discovered exactly what is slowly sending western civilisation to hell in a handbasket.

Introducing the "liability shield".

Forgive me if I'm writing about something that you already know everything about, but I'm a bit new to this particular party. Seemingly protecting yourself from anything going wrong is the new black, and what's more, everyone is getting away with it. Two examples that spring to mind are Dr Brendan Drumm of the HSE and Irish rugby coach Eddie O'Sullivan.

When Mary Harney set up the HSE it was, in a manner of speaking, a liablility shield for herself as she grasped the poisoned chalice that is our health portfolio. But her troubles were only beginning when she tried to find someone to head the bloody organisation!!! After several interviews, she finally appointed Dr Drumm. Can you imagine the contract he negotiated? If has half a brain, and being a doctor I have to assume he has much more than that, he must have a contract that practically says the sky can fall down on the HSE and it won't be his fault, even though he's being very well paid to head the thing.

Then there's good ol' Eddie. Do you think it's possible that he knew the writing was on the wall for his team before a ball was kicked in anger in France? Maybe he had a wee bit of dirt on some of the blazers at the IRFU or at least mwas able to work some Machiavellian magic behind the scenes and wangle himself a deal ahead of the event? Well whatever actually transpired and whoever made the first approach, he sure is sitting pretty now for a manager of a team that fell way, way short of expectations.

So there you have it - the liability shield. Now of course, most of us would value a cushy contract like that almost as much as we would a winning lottery ticket, but you have to ask yourself - just how much of a wedge in this type of contract going to drive between the haves and the have-nots in the future and could it ultimately be the mechanism that finally turns the Celtic Tiger into the Celtic Carcass???

Maybe I should do a law degree and find out.

DING! Time to publish or be damned.